scholarly journals The Use ofKairosin Renaissance Political Philosophy*

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Paul

AbstractAlthough the Greek concept ofkairos (καιρός)has undergone a recent renewal of interest among scholars of Renaissance rhetoric, this revival has not yet been paralleled by its reception into the history of political thought. This article examines the meanings and uses of this important concept within the ancient Greek tradition, particularly in the works of Isocrates and Plutarch, in order to understand how it is employed by two of the most important political thinkers of the sixteenth century: Thomas Elyot and Niccolò Machiavelli. Through such an investigation this paper argues that an appreciation of the concept ofkairosand its use by Renaissance political writers provides a fuller understanding of the political philosophy of the period.

1963 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Arsenio Torres

Contemporary discussions of political forms exhibit a concern with constitutional procedures and values seldom encountered in the history of political thought. The search for a parallel development would require a turning to the classical period of Greek and Roman philosophy and politics. In the light of contemporary constitutional self-consciousness, as well as of the sustained inquiry of the ancient world into the various forms of polity, pure and degraded, ideal and historical, the political analyses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries assume the character of politico-ideological crystallizations of the breakdown of the ancien regime. There are, of course, fundamental underlying differences between these three periods of political reflection. The ancient Greek analyses, although centering on Greek realities and problems, bear, prima facie, a style of detached theory intended to be taken as philosophy, no more, no less.


2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 843-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA BECKER

AbstractIn the history of early modern political thought, gender is not well established as a subject. It seems that early modern politics and its philosophical underpinnings are characterized by an exclusion of women from the political sphere. This article shows that it is indeed possible to write a gendered history of early modern political thought that transcends questions of the structural exclusion of women from political participation. Through a nuanced reading of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century commentaries on Aristotle's practical philosophy, it deconstructs notions on the public/political and private/apolitical divide and reconstructs that early modern thinkers saw the relationship of husband and wife as deeply political. The article argues that it is both necessary and possible to write gender in and into the history of political thought in a historically sound and firmly contextual way that avoids anachronisms, and it shows – as Joan Scott has suggested – that gender is indeed a ‘useful category’ in the history of political thought.


Author(s):  
José María Rosales

RESUMENEl trabajo presenta algunos de los rasgos básicos de la condición política moderna. Esboza así su génesis interna desde la sacralización del ámbito político hasta los inicios de la secularización en el siglo XIII. Para ilustrar ambos momentos de la filosofía política de Santo Tomás (elaborada a la luz de los textos de Aristóteles) provee una argumentación básica que, aun siendo incompleta para reconstruir este tránsito, resulta significativamente clarificadora. PALABRAS CLAVEFILOSOFIA POLITICA MEDIEVAL-HISTORIA DEL PENSAMIENTO POLITICO- SANTO TOMAS DE AQUINOABSTRACTThe paper presents some of the basic features of the medieval political condition. This, it outlines the genesis from the sacralization of the political realm to the beginnings of secularization in the XIIIth century. To illustrate both moments, Saint Thomas' political philosophy (worked out in the ight of Aristotle's thext) provdes a significant, though incomplete, argumentative basis. KEYWORDSMEDIEVAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY-HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT- AQUINAS


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Langer

A comparison between The Teaching for Merikare and Niccolò Machiavelli’s Il Principe produces some astonishing results. While Machiavelli’s treatise is generally thought to be representative of the dawn of modern Western political realism, its essential properties are already present in Merikare. This includes the firm belief in strong authority, the fallibility of man, the need to appease the masses, and, if necessary, the demand to repress any developing threat to the power of the elite. In terms of the history of political thought Merikare is placed between the works of the moral realism of Greek philosophers like Plato and the political realism of Thucydides and Machiavelli. With the latter being heavily influenced by ancient authors, questions regarding the genesis of Greek political thought can be asked. It may well be that Greek political thought was, at least indirectly, influenced by Egyptian political thought.


Author(s):  
Aurelian Craiutu

This chapter examines different visions of moderation in the history of French political thought. It first considers the reluctance to theorize about moderation, in part because moderation has often been understood as a vague virtue. It then discusses moderation in the classical and Christian traditions, focusing on the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, followed by an analysis of the writings of sixteenth-century political thinkers such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Claude de Seyssel, Louis Le Roy, Étienne Pasquier, Michel de Montaigne, Blaise Pascal, and French moralists such as La Bruyère and François de La Rochefoucauld. It also describes the transformation of moderation from a predominantly ethical concept into a prominent political virtue. Finally, it explores the views of authors such as David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau on fanaticism in relation to moderation.


Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a classification that distinguishes between Weber the ‘liberal’, Schmitt the ‘conservative’ and Neumann the ‘social democrat’, cannot provide an adequate understanding of this episode in the history of political thought. Nor indeed can it do so for other periods. In this book, one part of the development of their ideas has focused on the relationship between state and politics. By learning from their examples, people continue their own search for an acceptable balance between the freedom of the individual and the claims of the political community.


Stasis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-40
Author(s):  
Andrey Teslya

In the history of political thought, Russian Slavophilism of the period from 1840s till 1880s has two established traditions of interpretation: as a variant of conservative ideology and as one form of Russian liberalism of the 1840s, along with Westernism (in this case, the later history of Slavophilism, i.e. the period between 1860s and 1880s, is viewed as a departure from initially liberal stances. Beginning with the framework of Andrzej Walicki, the article attempts to demonstrate the underpinnings of this peculiar duality of evaluations. Slavophilism is understood as liberal conservatism; the article also uncovers the structural conditions, on which the liberal component of Slavophile views are based. Special attention is given to the analysis of processes, which led to the dominance of the interpretation, according to which Russian Slavophilism is a conservative ideology, where the liberal component is defined as situational. The reason for such a reading are rooted in the peculiar position of Russian liberalism in the late XIX century, when the nationalism agenda was interpreted as entirely pertaining to the conservative side of the political spectrum.


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